By KEN KORCZAK
The True Story of a German-American Assyriologist Who Time Traveled to 4000 B.C. and Conversed With a Sumerian Priest
He was one of the world’s leading scientists. Little did he know, he was about to get a personal visit from an ancient Sumerian priest who had been dead for more than 4,000 years.
Furthermore, this bizarre meeting between the renowned scholar and a ghost from a vanished civilization would provide a solution to a vexing archaeological mystery.
THE ESTEEMED GERMAN-AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST
Itwas the year 1896, and Dr. Hermann Volrath Hilprecht was up late at night working in a cluttered archaeology lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He was surrounded by artifacts retrieved from the numerous digs he had worked on or supervised in various remote desert regions of what is now modern-day Iraq.
The German-born Dr. Hilprecht was a world-renowned Assyriologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His specialty was deciphering and interpreting cuneiform clay tablets and other objects. Cuneiform is the first known writing system, developed by the Sumerians in about 3,200 B.C.
Dr. Hilprecht was the archetype of a disciplined, razor-backed German scientist. Born in 1859 in Hohenerxleben, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1883. His study of philology made him an expert in linguistics & language, but his passion was for the ancient past and archaeology.
After university training, he spent years getting his hands dirty working in the field, laboring on and supervising archaeological digs under the punishing, broiling sun of the Syrian Desert.
Known for his fastidious attention to detail, sifting through hard data, and painstaking examination of original artifacts, Hermann Volrath Hilprecht was probably the last person one might expect to report that he had engaged in a direct conversation with an ancient priest who had been dead for centuries.
THE UNEXPECTED VISITATION
Late one night in 1886, Dr. Hilprecht could be found once again working late in his workroom at the university. He had spent hours puzzling over some tiny cuneiform inscriptions etched into two pieces of agate. He was reasonably sure the agate stones were taken from ceremonial Sumerian finger rings known to have been worn by powerful Sumerian elites, but also used to adorn statues.
They were among dozens of fragments that were recovered from a temple devoted to the Sumerian god, Bel, located in the ancient city of Nippur, also known as Enlil City, named for the god Enlil, “Lord of the Wind.
Dr. Hilprecht was reasonably certain the cuneiform on the finger ring agate stones identified them as of the Cassite period, but he had many other samples with uncertain origins. It was like putting together a massive jigsaw puzzle, but far more difficult because of the unknown origin of each piece.
After hours of exhaustive work, a bone-weary Dr. Hilprecht set his head down on a table and fell fast asleep. Within minutes, however, he found himself seemingly “wide awake” within an amazing dream.
Looking around, Dr. Hilprecht was stunned to find himself somewhere deep inside a secret chamber in the Temple of Bel — but not the ruins as they exist today. Rather, the archaeologist seemed to be inside the structure as it existed in prime condition more than 4,000 years ago.
Suddenly, a tall, gaunt, and stern-looking man dressed in a “simple abba” appeared before him. Dr. Hilprecht surmised this person to be a Sumerian priest. He appeared to be about 40 years old. The priest beckoned Hilprecht to follow him and subsequently led him to a low-ceilinged room that had no windows. The priest informed Hilprecht that this was a “treasure chamber.”
In the room was a large wooden chest containing a jumble of artifacts, figurines, ornaments, relics, heirlooms, and jewelry. Hilprecht looked around the room and noticed numerous agate stones and lapis lazuli materials scattered around the chamber floor.
The priest then got right down to business. He began to speak to Dr. Hilprecht. To his amazement, the long-dead Mesopotamian seemed eager to inform him about the artifacts that Dr. Hilprecht had been puzzling over for weeks in his University of Pennsylvania lab — 4,000 years into the priest’s future! Speaking directly to Dr. Hilprecht, the priest told him bluntly:
“The two fragments you have been working on are not finger rings.”
The priest then listed off a number of factoids pertinent to the background, utility, and history of the item Dr. Hilprecht had been studying. The priest said:
- “King Kurigalzu sent to the Temple of Bel articles made from agate and lapis lazuli, and also inscribed votive cylinders of agate.” (Note: This would be King Kurigalzu I, who died c. 1375 B.C)
- Then my fellow priests and I received a sudden message from the King’s command to make a pair of earrings that would adorn a statue of the god of Ninib.”
- “This ordered task sent us into great dismay because we had no agate as raw material on hand.”
- “In order to execute our charge, we had no other choice but to cut the votive cylinder we had into three parts, and use these to make the earnings for Ninib.”
- “Each piece, of course, contained a portion of the original symbols already inscribed on the cylinder.”
- “The first two rings served as earrings for the statue; the other two fragments that have given you so much trouble are portions of them.”
Finally, the priest added bluntly:
“If you will put the two together, you will have confirmation of my word. However, there is a third ring you have not found in your excavations — and you will never find it.”
With that, the Sumerian priest vanished. Dr. Hilprecht jolted awake from his dream. The amazing event he had just experienced electrified him! The vivid experience felt like something more than a dream. It seemed more real than real!
The next day, a Sunday, Dr. Hilprecht told his wife about the dream in great detail so that he would not forget what the long-dead Sumerian priest had told him.
Back in his lab, Dr. Hilprecht re-examined the artifacts — and to make a long story short — there was no doubt that everything the Sumerian figure in his dreams had told him checked out to be true. Now that he knew the “inside story,” he was able to easily solve, translate and finalize the meaning carried by the fragments of cuneiform-inscribed agate pieces,
The inscriptions are translated this way:
“To the god Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented this.”
Dr. Hilprecht composed a monograph based on his dream experience. It was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, the organization based in London, and founded in 1882 by such top luminaries as Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, Sir William Crookes, and William Sidgwick (to name a few).
Dr. Hilprecht said:
“As soon as I found the fragments and put them together, the truth of the dream was demonstrated ad oculos.”
Ad oculas is Latin for “to the eyes.” In other words, putting the artifacts together as the priest had instructed in the dream made it obvious that the riddle of the pieces was solved, and in the sense that “seeing is believing.”
DREAM ARCHAEOLOGY — AN UNTAPPED RESOURCE
I present this story because I find it an exciting and intriguing story that demonstrates what others have called “Dream Archaeology.” The latter term was coined by the terrific New York Times bestselling author, Robert Moss.
Robert Moss is most known today as an expert in lucid and creative dreaming techniques, about which he has written about two dozen books. (See my review of a Robert Moss title here: THE BODY WHO DIED AND CAME BACK TO LIFE.)
Moss has leveraged his expertise in inducing lucid dreaming to pen several fiction books based on his “dream travels” to historic periods, such as the time of the French and Indian War (1754–1763). An example is Fire Along the Sky.
PSYCHIC AND REMOTE VIEWING ARCHAEOLOGY
Similar to Dream Archaeology, some archaeologists have tapped into psychics and remote viewers to gain intelligence about archaeological matters, from pinpointing “where to dig” to solving problems associated with interpreting the use and meaning of archaeological artifacts.
No one has done more work in this vein than Stephan A. Schwartz, one of the early developers and true pioneers of remote viewing. He wrote two fascinating books about deploying highly skilled and gifted psychics to gain information on ancient sites of interest to archaeologists. These books are The Secret Vaults of Time and The Alexandria Project.
MY OWN ATTEMPTS AT DREAM ARCHAEOLOGY
Readers familiar with my articles on Medium may know that I have explored dream archaeology extensively over the years. Here are some of my articles on the results I achieved:
THE TRUE STORY OF MY TIME TRAVEL TO THE YEAR 4600 B.C. — A STONEHENGE FLYOVER
ADVENTURES IN CONSCIOUSNESS: MY DREAM ARCHAEOLOGY JOURNEY TO DENISOVA CAVE, 40,000 B.C.
MY DREAM ARCHAEOLOGY JOURNEY TO GOBEKLI TEPE, 12,000 B.C.
NOTE: For more stories about UFOs, the paranormal, and alternative archaeology, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM
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